Stocks and Shares Tracker?

No, not a new app, just another new feature in Account Tracker …. the ability to look up stock prices and give you an up-to-date valuation for your holdings.

I had intended to add this as an in-app purchase at some stage, however it is not polished enough to do that, and I am sure there will be a few regional issues (e.g. US stocks are priced in USD and UK stocks are priced in pence not GBP). I therefore thought I’d just add it to the app as is.

Here is how it works …

1. Create an account for a stock you want to track, set its name to the stock ticker (e.g. APPL) and the currency depending on the market it is traded in. Note that for UK stocks you need to put .L at the end (e.g. RBS.L or TSCO.L or VOD.L).

2. In the notes field, add the text

STOCKS:100

replacing the 100 with the number of shares you own.

3. The app will then treat this account like a foreign currency account, and it will periodically look up the share price and adjust the CURRENT balance based on the number of shares you hold. For example if you were lucky enough to have 100 APPL shares, your current balance would be automatically calculated to be something like $60,000.

4. If you have multiple holdings, you can use the text

STOCKS:100+200+50

5. If you want the current balance set to your profit or loss instead, you can include the price you paid as follows …

STOCKS:100@12.34

That’s it really. Very simple to use and hopefully a useful addition for some of you.

If you do use this, please let me know how you get on, especially if you have any suggestions to make it better.

I am particularly interested in people using it for markets other than the US or the UK. Are the valuations correct or (for example) are they out by a factor of 100??